Dr. Vasilis Politis

Dr. Vasilis Politis

Associate Professor (Philosophy)

ARTS BUILDING

Dr Vasilis Politis has been teaching in the Department of Philosophy since 1992 (permanent since 1997). He is also director of the Dublin Centre for the Study of the Platonic Tradition. He obtained his B.A., B.Phil and D.Phil from Oxford.

Following a number of articles on the place of aporia in Plato's early dialogues, and with the recent publication of The Structure of Enquiry in Plato's Early Dialogues, a very major research project has been brought to a successful conclusion. Now is a good moment to look forward with a view to the next project. This project emerges directly out of the previous, and from The Structure of Enquiry. My aim is to address, in a new way and from a new angle, the question of the origin of Plato's theory of Forms; and to do so based on the conclusions at which I arrived in my recent book, especially regarding the role that a specific kind of aporia, which I label radical aporia, occupies in Plato's method of argument and enquiry. The central question of the project is: In what way, and based on what reasoning, did Plato arrive at the commitment not only to definitions and essences, but to Forms and the division of all things into, on the one hand, changeless, imperceptible Forms and, on the other-hand, sense-perceptible things subject to physical change? I believe this project has the potential of transforming the current state of the art (the Forschungsstand) with regard to the question of the character and origin of Plato's theory of Forms. Both traditionally and today, there are two categories of views regarding this question. On the one view, commonly referred to as 'unitarianism', the theory of Forms is present already in Plato's early dialogues. On the other view, this being the Aristotelian style view indicated above, the theory is derived by Plato from two distinct and independent elements, only one of which is present in the early dialogues. I argue against both views. The Aristotelian style view is problematic because, as I will argue, it implies that Plato does not have a non-question-begging reasoning for Forms. The unitarian view is equally, if not more, problematic, I believe. For it leaves Plato without an attempt to argue for Forms.

Funding Agency

TCD

Programme

n/a

Project Type

major monograph

Person Months

15

Project Title

Aporia, the Search for Knowledge, and the Demand for Definitions in the Early Platonic Dialogues

From

2005

To

2014

Summary

The aim of this project is to establish the function of aporia in Plato's early dialogues and to show that this is crucial for our understanding of, first, the method and structure of Plato's arguments and inquiries, and, second, Plato's demand for definitions and the view that knowledge requires knowledge of definitions. This project is now at a stage of completion, with several articles and a major book.

Funding Agency

IRC. Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Project Title

The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy

From

2014

To

216

Summary

This project studies the role of aporia in ancient philosophy, from the Eleatics and sophists, through Plato and Aristotle, to later scepticism (both Academic and Pyrrhonian) and up to Plotinus and Damascius. The project is a joint undertaking of Vasilis Politis and George Karamanolis (Vienna). It brings together a team of fourteen international experts. It will issues in a volume of papers to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

Vasilis POLITIS, The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle's Metaphysics , Routledge, 2019,
Notes: [This is a new, substantially revised and enlarged version of Politis 2004 and is designed to form part of a new and prestigious series by Routledge],
Book,
ACCEPTED

Vasilis POLITIS and Peter LARSEN, The Platonic Mind, Routledge, 2018,
Notes: [This is a collection of fifty 6.000-words articles by a mix of top scholars and up-and-coming younger scholars, on the philosophy of Plato],
Book,
ACCEPTED

Aporia and Scepticism in Plato's Early Dialogues in, editor(s)Vasilis POLITIS and George KARAMANOLIS , The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp48 - 66, [Vasilis POLITIS],
Book Chapter,
PUBLISHED

Introduction in, editor(s)Vasilis POLITIS and George KARAMANOLIS , The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp1 - 8, [Vasilis POLITIS and George KARAMANOLIS],
Book Chapter,
PUBLISHED

Vasilis POLITIS, The Structure of Enquiry in Plato's Early Dialogues CHINA EDITION , Beijing, Peking University Press, 2017, 1 - 100pp,
Notes: [Notes: [This is the CHINA EDITION of my The Structure of Enquiry in Plato's Early Dialogues, published by Peking University Press in collaboration with Cambridge University Press]],
Book,
PUBLISHED